Sunsets, Sabbatical & Scandal

Title: Sunsets, Sabbatical & Scandal
Author: Tonya Kappes
Published: March 17, 2020, by Tonya Kappes
Format: Paperback, 204 Pages
Genre: Amateur Sleuth
Series: Camper & Criminals (#10)

Blurb: A beloved resident of Normal, Kentucky is found dead on the floor of the Normal Diner, leaving the entire town on high alert. Faster than the short order cook can say order up... the laundry ladies are in the scene.

News spreads fast about the murder and Detective Hank Sharp is hungry for answers.

Mae West along with the Laundry Club ladies come up with a list of suspects and the evidence is piling up faster than a juicy double cheeseburger.

Who murdered the beloved citizen?

Was it a hit to score some extra lunch money?

My Opinion: I’ll admit it. When I opened the book and saw hints of a wedding plot, I sighed. I thought we were headed straight into another overused storyline. Thankfully, that thread turned out to be a tiny blip in the larger picture.

What really caught my attention was learning the term “juice jacking.” I’d heard the warnings about public charging stations, but I had no idea there was an actual name for it. Leave it to Tonya Kappas to slip in something unexpectedly educational.

This installment takes a more serious turn than the usual breezy visit to Normal, Kentucky. Mae returns to her hometown and is hit with devastating news about her parents’ deaths. She’s carried guilt for years, believing she played a part in what happened. Now she’s forced to confront the possibility that she was wrong, and the emotional fallout is heavy. But she isn’t facing it alone. That’s the beauty of this series. The found family around Mae gives the story its warmth even when the subject matter darkens.

Of course, there’s still a murder to solve. Mae stays one step ahead of her detective boyfriend, and the laundry ladies continue to show up before anyone even has time to dial for help. It’s familiar, a little chaotic, and exactly the kind of comfort I reach for when I want a quiet afternoon with a book.

The ending genuinely surprised me. I usually spot the culprit early, but this time I didn’t see it coming. Maybe the clues were there and I missed them, or maybe Kappas simply outmaneuvered me.

Call it repetitive if you want, but I enjoy this series. Each mystery stands alone, so readers can jump in anywhere, yet the charm of Normal and its residents keeps me coming back. There’s just something about this community, and Mae’s journey through it, that makes the return trip worthwhile every time.

Sugar and Spite

Title: Sugar and Spite
Author: M.C. Beaton, R.W. Green
Published: October 14, 2025 by Minotaur Books
Format: Kindle, 256 Pages
Genre: Amateur Sleuth
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Agatha Raisin #36

Blurb: When a series of deaths within the small Cotswolds birdwatching community begins to unravel her village, Agatha and her team at Raisin Investigators are certain there has been foul play involved. Now, they must dig up decades' worth of tempestuous relationships and simmering secrets among the birdwatching enthusiasts of the village in order to prevent any further deaths.

But with Agatha's own relationship with John Glass on the rocks after he is called away on his job as a cruise ship dance instructor, and Sir Charles Fraith now attempting to step into John’s shoes as her lover, Agatha has her work cut out for her.

Agatha will have to break out her binoculars and embrace her bitter side to solve the murders and wrangle the sickly-sweet temptations in her own life. Will she be able to gather all the breadcrumbs and put together the clues before she becomes a sitting duck herself?

My Opinion: I wasn’t prepared for the way this ending landed. It snuck up on me and delivered every emotional beat I didn’t realize I’d been waiting for. Up until then, the book had been a bit uneven—twisty in places, sluggish in others—but that final stretch lifted it from an okay installment into something more satisfying.

I’ve been openly skeptical about R.W. Green continuing the series after M.C. Beaton’s passing. For a long time, it felt like he couldn’t quite capture the sharp, distinctly female perspective that makes Agatha Raisin who she is. But this book surprised me. For the first time, I felt that spark again, the one that makes Agatha both maddening and irresistible.

All the familiar faces are here, and their interactions feel comfortably in step with the long-running series. The new characters tied to the murder, though, were harder to keep straight. I’m not sure if it was the way they were introduced or simply that they blurred together, but I found myself pausing more than once to remember who was who.

As for Agatha’s future, I genuinely don’t know where she goes from here. Maybe we’re seeing the beginnings of a refreshed version of her. Then again, part of her charm is that she never really changes. She’s still the woman who barrels into trouble, emerges from mud puddles with perfect lipstick, and spots a liar from a mile away. That’s why readers keep coming back. No matter how twisty the mystery gets, Agatha remains Agatha, and that’s the real draw.

The Old Fire

Title: The Old Fire
Author: Elisa Shua Dusapin
Translator: Aneesa Abbas Higgins
Published: January 13, 2026, by S&S/Summit Books
Format: Kindle, 192 Pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.

Blurb: Agathe leaves New York and returns to her home in the French countryside, after fifteen years away.

She and her sister Véra have not seen each other in all those years, and they carry the weight of their own complicated lives. But now their father has died, and they must confront their childhood home on the outskirts of a country estate ravaged by a nearby fire before it is knocked down. They have nine days to empty it. As the pair clean and sift through a lifetime’s worth of belongings, old memories, and resentments surface.

Tender and tense, haunting and evocative, The Old Fire is Elisa Shua Dusapin’s most personal and moving novel yet. An exploration of time and memory, of family and belonging, it is also a graceful and profound look at the unsaid and the unanswered, the secrets that remain, and whether you can ever really go home again.

My Opinion: Every so often, a book sneaks up on me, and this novel did exactly that. At under 200 pages, it shouldn’t have hit as hard as it did, yet here I am full of feelings, full of questions, and already imagining the kind of conversations it would spark in a book club.

The novel follows two sisters, Agatha and Véra, who reunite after their father’s death to sort through the remnants of their childhood home. Agatha bolted the moment she was old enough, while Véra stayed behind to shoulder the responsibility she left her with. Their week together is a slow excavation of memory with humor tucked beside resentment, tenderness brushing up against old wounds, and a kind of honesty that only siblings can manage. Even so, plenty remains unspoken.

Dusapin threads in the girls’ earlier years with a light but deliberate hand with Véra’s sudden muteness, Agatha’s fierce instinct to protect her, and the mother who walked away without much care for what she left behind. These pieces don’t form a tidy puzzle, but they deepen the emotional terrain the sisters must navigate.

By the end, Dusapin resists the urge to explain everything. Instead, she leaves space for the reader to sit with the unknowns and stitch together meaning on their own. It’s unsettling in the best way. Not everyone will call this a perfect book, but it blindsided me, and now I’m left turning it over in my mind, accepting that some stories aren’t meant to be tied up neatly.

The Hidden City

Title: The Hidden City
Author: Charles Finch
Published: September 6, 2025, by Minotaur Books
Format: Kindle, 288 pages
Genre: Historical Mystery
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Charles Lenox Mysteries #12

Blurb: It's 1879, and Lenox is convalescing from the violent events of his last investigation. But a desperate letter from an old servant forces him to pick up the trail of a cold case: the murder of an apothecary seven years before, whose only clue is an odd emblem carved into the doorway of the building where the man was killed. When Lenox finds a similar mark at the site of another murder, he begins to piece together a hidden pattern which leads him into the corridors of Parliament, the slums of East London, and ultimately the very heart of the British upper class.

At the same time, Lenox must contend with the complexities of his personal life: a surprising tension with his steadfast wife, Lady Jane, over her public support of the early movement for women's suffrage; the arrival of Angela Lenox, a mysterious young cousin from India, with an unexpected companion; the dizzying ascent of his brother, Sir Edmund Lenox, to one of the highest political posts in the land; the growing family of his young partners in detection, Polly and Dallington; and the return of the problems that have long bedeviled one of his closest friends, the dashing Scottish physician Thomas McConnell.

My Opinion: One of the things that I enjoy about a Charles Lenox novel is how it teaches the reader something while telling a good story. Every book offers a bit of history, a touch of vocabulary, a lot of mystery, and a handful of plot threads that resolve at their own pace. This novel may be short in page count, but it does not skimp on the details.

Because there’s been a long gap since the previous book, it takes a moment to settle back in. Once you do, the familiar rhythm returns, and the promise of another installment later this year makes the adjustment easier. The series has never bored me, and with Jane protesting for the right to vote and two new charges now in Lennox’s care, the emotional stakes feel richer than before.

What surprised me most was finding myself sympathizing with a villain. I can’t recall another Lenox novel that pulled that off quite this strongly. The middle section may feel slow for some readers, but the story regains its footing with its well drawn cast and engaging dialogue.

Where Finch will take us next is anyone’s guess, but that uncertainty is part of the fun.